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Things are collapsing in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's masterful trilogies set in a universe that manifests, in this volume especially, as a energized and slanted version of our own. Institutions are weakening, or reorganizing themselves along unfamiliar and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "currency is failing, and no one knows why". Control is shifting from states, and gathering in the offices of theocrats, the treasuries of business empires, the control of rioters. "Some force is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman Mustafa Bey, keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient paths from his post in an Aleppo cafe. "Elements we thought were firm and solid are deteriorating and giving way."

Core Enigma and Lyra's Journey

Precisely what that something might be, and how to counteract it, is the mystery that propels the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last venture into the elaborately built, deeply captivating realm he first revealed 30 years ago, with the launch of His Dark Materials. It's a domain whose geography aligns with that of this world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the humans look and reason and act like us, but are paired by daemons, beings in beast form; where the skies are populated with enchantresses and mythical beasts, but beneath those skies, transports are taken and beverages is sipped, and middle-aged professors carry Harrods shopping bags. Lyra, whom we first encountered as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a toddler in the first volume, the origin story with which the author began the series, is now a young woman: still recognisably the sharp and persistent protagonist of the prior volumes, but older, more sorrowful, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her daemon, her daemon – but it was also, unexpectedly, the cause which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Interwoven Plots

His choice to leave in quest of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an aspect which he represents as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the driving forces of the prior book, which followed the protagonist undertake a picaresque trek across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with amazement and risk on the way. But from the start, underlying forces were in play, and sinister powers at work. The religious council – the church's ruling body, and the author's deliciously chilling incarnation of austere, administrative wickedness – is under new leadership, and flexing its muscles. The antagonist – the heroine's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of head of the Magisterium's ruling assembly, and is set on using his fresh influence to expand the religion's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a flooded Thames as an child in the first book, is now an academic with a additional duty in intelligence work: he is dispatched to the city to find out more about Delamare's plans. And behind all of this is the mystery surrounding the scarce and costly essential oil which appears mysteriously to be the origin of a social and financial upheaval rippling out from Central Asia. The oil is regarded by various factions as a marketable good, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by yet others – the zealous "highland figures" – as a wellspring of darkness; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, its significance, and whether it should be eliminated or safeguarded is escalating in importance.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's actions, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably connected with the fate of the realm

In its predecessor, these plots ran broadly in parallel. In this final book, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her choices and her destiny are shown to be inextricably linked with the future of the realm. Her private mission to reunite with her soul and regain her creativity becomes the primary struggle in a larger battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities always have, is seeking to stifle freedom of thinking, innovation and art: all the personal, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The book starts with the discovery of a collection of curious fissures in the fabric of the Earth's atmosphere: gateways that seem to lead to other worlds. An example of a window manifests to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The church, with its leader at its head, classifies these windows as a problem to the church's orthodoxy and sets out to eradicate them. As our protagonist begins to shift from rigid reason and revert to instinct, however, her conviction that these sites must be defended – that their significance and their value is mysteriously essential – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the extract, or the vision, or the Rose Field, or no matter what we label it," she says, "we need it." The setting for a Blakean tussle between innocence and knowledge is set.

Story Tempo and Personal Evolution

At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the